HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

Much as though I love this series, it does feel like it's in permanent stasis with nothing ever moving anything forward. The past couple of episodes have Tom in an increasingly dark mood as he contemplates jail... but then all of a sudden, a literal get-out-of-jail-free card. Back to where we were before, nothing has really happened after all. It's kind of the same with Ken - he tries to take over the company, gets thwarted, goes to a dark place, then finds a new way to try and take over the company, gets thwarted, goes to a dark place... Compare with The White Lotus, another series about asshole rich people acting like assholes - but there things actually happened, someone died, there were consequences etc. And here, what are the stakes anyway? The latest episode has Logan offering to buy Ken out for $2 billion. $2 billion!!! With that kind of money Ken could literally turn around and set up his own streaming service or whatever it is he wants to do. There's no actual downside to getting kicked out of Waystar!

It's probably brain poisoning from all the interpersonal machinations of this show, but I found myself wondering if Kendall's ex made up the rabbit-wrapped present to set him off

Much as though I love this series, it does feel like it's in permanent stasis with nothing ever moving anything forward.

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, December 2, 2021 7:48 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

basically the thing that makes me think it might actually be good rather than just a good show

Well, I can certainly see it as a point of differentiation. But if nothing really ever happens, then nothing is really up for grabs.

is art when things are up for grabs

everyone so mad for arcs and resolutions
it doesnt always have to be swings and roundabouts! i think the show is still great, still enjoyable & horrifying
its great just the way it is
just enjoy the ride, dudes

agree 100%

Fair enough!

Feel like the lack of consequences is one of the themes of the show. You cannot truly fail *or* be redeemed. Wealth protects and corrupts in equal measure.

Yup. It’s a theme. It’s just not great drama around season 5.

says you

it’s just people being threatened with a vat of acid while living in luxury
Logan thinks he grew up on the acid shores
Shiv is on the acid beach and pretending she cares when people are dragged toward it, dances around
Connor is against acid, but acknowledges it is present but he doesn’t know how it works and also libertarians hover above it with magic
Roman is always like “throw me in the acid! I love it!” but has never felt the sting despite waving his hand over it all the time
Kendall just wishes the dissolve would hit him, just acid bath. Maybe not even in the acid bath lineage and that is why the acid question never really hits right. He wishes he knew.
Greg has never heard anything about this but always falls short of speculating what the burning thing people talk about might be. Maybe ask grandpa

Much as though I love this series, it does feel like it's in permanent stasis with nothing ever moving anything forward.

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, December 2, 2021 7:48 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

basically the thing that makes me think it might actually be good rather than just a good show

― lag∞n, Friday, December 3, 2021 1:25 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm. it's waiting for godot, except they're waiting (very comfortably, amid opulence, committing heinous crimes upon their loved ones and others) for death.

I mean the whole show is called Succession. It's like if the succession ever actually gets settled, the show's over.

the final scene will be brian cox addressing the camera saying you are the successor and it pans and hes talking to iverson

's rabbit

lmao

iversons DEAD rabbit

hey now, we haven't seen the body on screen yet. this is HBO.

it ate an entire bagel

Some part of me felt "rabbit" was code for "rabbi" and "kill the rabbit by feeding it a bagel" was code for "assassinate Josh Aaronson" who I will point out hasn't been seen on-screen since that episode

wow

lol I also assumed that he was talking to someone who was a lawyer or fixer and “rabbit” was a code

thats v funny to me

cmon, a rabbi can totally eat a bagel

This tale of Jeremy Strong’s student efforts to bring Al Pacino to his college campus is an insta-classic https://t.co/jpICwRzjLY pic.twitter.com/JAVS5eWARg

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 5, 2021

Good long profile of Strong linked there ^^:

At the audition, Strong, his shoes tied tight, read a scene between Kendall and the C.E.O. of a startup that he’s trying to acquire. Armstrong was skeptical. He asked Strong to “loosen the language,” and the scene transformed. “It was about, like, Beastie Boys-ing it up,” Strong recalled. “I was missing the patois of bro-speak.” By the end of the day, he had the part.

i’ve always found it a little disquieting that the reason he is so good at being Kendall is because he’s giving 100% of himself

dude goes so deep it’s scary

lmao

When I asked Strong about the rap that Kendall performs in Season 2, at a gala for his father—a top contender for Kendall’s most cringeworthy moment—he gave an unsmiling answer about Raskolnikov, referencing Kendall’s “monstrous pain.” Kieran Culkin told me, “After the first season, he said something to me like, ‘I’m worried that people might think that the show is a comedy.’ And I said, ‘I think the show is a comedy.’ He thought I was kidding.” Part of the appeal of “Succession” is its amalgam of drama and bone-dry satire. When I told Strong that I, too, thought of the show as a dark comedy, he looked at me with incomprehension and asked, “In the sense that, like, Chekhov is comedy?” No, I said, in the sense that it’s funny. “That’s exactly why we cast Jeremy in that role,” McKay told me. “Because he’s not playing it like a comedy. He’s playing it like he’s Hamlet.”

v good profile wow

dude is intensity in ten cities

It's not a comedy.

Something's not a comedy just because it's funny!

Wow, he sounds absolutely intolerable. Of course, there's always the possibility that the writer hated him and cut out all the parts about him being a non-maniac who someone was able to marry and live with.

That’s amazing.

Also this is pitch black satirical comedy thrown in with classical drama, no need to split hairs, the weirdness is dude being seemingly obliviousness to a core, kinda THE core, of the thing.

I borked that, but yeah.

He didn't sound intolerable to me but I am sort of into really weird people who are really good at something, especially something I don't understand how it's done at all, he's like the free solo guy

So the ending tonight…

If that’s the end of the guy, those final words and their delivery got me choked up.

Whatever could you be referring to

seems like we’re really overcomplicating this. ~Kendall Roy~ is definitively not a player in a comedy, and Jeremy Strong is committed to the role.

Interviews I’ve heard/read of fellow actors on the show have been very “Yeeeah. Jeremy has his methods and is very committed to the role. He’s a great actor. Can we talk about something else?”

well that's very likely a moot point now!

in this episode my skeleton indeed left my body and may never return

I’m still screaming #SuccessionHBO pic.twitter.com/IXNTfg5QTy

— layla (@h7ney) December 6, 2021

really didn't think anything was going to top tom and shiv's pillow talk but chips kept getting stacked higher and higher

there were like multiple escalations

shiv & scary poppins
tom & shiv
logan & kendall
rory & logan
shiv & jerry
kendall + kendall

im so stressed out

Feel bad for the chefs constantly making meals that end after 0 to 1 bites

it is the most infuriating aspect of a show that apparently feeds entirely on my infuriation

i bet that mozzarella was fucking amazing
wasting it on iverson
FUCK

those final words and their delivery got me choked up.

wait what were they